Nathan Young
Skills Nathan is immortal - he can’t die, no matter how he’s killed or how many times. There are only two limitations to his power: he needs to actually die before he can come back to life (no instant healing or regeneration), and sometimes it takes a bit of time - anywhere from a few hours to a day or so. However, every time he dies, he gets better at coming back a little faster and without the typical side effects of death (bowel movements in particular). Unfortunately, he still feels the pain of death when he’s killed and tries to avoid dying excessively. This ability is also the source of Nathan’s weakness. If he does not die completely, his body cannot regenerate damaged tissue and must heal naturally. Also, if he receives permanent brain injury without dying, he cannot reverse the effects. For example, if he is rendered completely vegetative - unable to move, speak, or kill himself in order to be revived - there is nothing he can do to repair his body. In tandem with his immortality, Nathan can see the ghosts of the recently departed, and can interact with them through touch and sight until they have passed on. However, he does not know of this power yet, and other than these two supernatural abilities, he hasn’t got much else to brag about. Nathan’s skills rely mainly on charisma, as he’s hardly formidable in hand-to-hand or actual combat due to his overall scrawniness. Personality Although granted with the gift of immortality and mediumship, Nathan is hardly the person who should possess such abilities. Considering that he tempts fate with frequency through drug and alcohol use, getting into fights with much stronger people, and eating a generally poor diet, he is a perfect picture of who not to give multiple lives. As cool as he thinks his ability is, he would not think to use it for selfless reasons. Rather, he would gladly exploit his ability for profit, if given the opportunity. Nathan loves one thing more than himself: material possessions. To him, a lower class delinquent, money is the ultimate key to success, longevity, and happiness - exploiting a natural ability to get a hold of some suits his lazy personality perfectly. Materialistic, self-absorbed, and disrespectful, Nathan is not even an anti-hero. He’s just kind of an asshole. If Nathan has anything going for him, it is his charisma. When he puts a bit of effort into it, he can spin a convincing story - although this is often used as a comedic device in his jokes. Staying serious enough to pull off a lie is quite difficult for him, but he truly is a fantastic actor. This charisma stems for confidence he has in himself: in his sexual prowess, his looks, and his self-worth. Nathan expresses no outward shame or humility and insults bounce off of him like he’s a man made of rubber. He embraces his identity as a screw-up whole-heartedly, no matter how badly others see him because of it. Accordingly, Nathan finds humor in almost every situation, whether traumatic, terrifying, or miserable. He finds sexual and vulgar humor the funniest, even when it is at his own expense. He can take an embarrassing situation and turn it into a self endorsement or an insult to someone else with a few quick words. It’s only when people stand up to him and fight back that he can truly get along with them. He only respects people who respect themselves; otherwise, he won’t bother making an effort to get to know someone or consider their feelings. Attitude is everything to Nathan, which is hardly shocking when he has so much of it himself. This apathy comes off as callousness, but he simply does not see the point in handling others with kid gloves. Because he doesn’t take himself seriously, he expects others to shrug off insults as well as he does. When he makes fun of others, he thinks it is in good fun even when it seems apparent that it not received well. It is very easy for him to shrug off awkward situations and to ignore the discomfort or anger of others. There are few instances where he has been genuinely frightened or hurt by other people’s words and actions - and those instances are Nathan at his most vulnerable. In short, on the surface Nathan is obnoxious, perverted, and completely full of himself. Deeper down, he’s still just as obnoxious, perverted, and full of himself, but no person can be a complete prick all of the time. Nathan has feelings buried far below all of the crap he talks, but he’s not quite capable of expressing them without sarcasm or swear words. He tries to avoid sentimental or sappy moments by arming himself with humor, but even he can act like a decent human being on occasion. For people like his mother and closest friends, Nathan would do just about anything and, if need be, he can shed his laziness and apathy for action. Appearance Generally speaking, Nathan is an attractive young man with expressive features and clear, pale skin - although it would be wise to never tell his inflated ego that. He has no distinguishing scars or marks, spare a few random moles scattered across his body and a star tattoo on his left wrist. He has a head full of curly, dark brown hair that brushes the tips of his ears and similarly bushy eyebrows. In contrast to these prominent features, including his high cheekbones, his irises are a shade of clear hazel and he has plentiful eyelashes, giving him a softer look around the eyes. His thin nose has a forgettable bump on the bridge, and widens out towards the curve of his upper lip. Nathan has a full, broad mouth and, often times, a cocky grin stretched over his set of average teeth. He has a somewhat high-pitched inflection and Irish accent, with a slight whine to it, but it is still charming. On his chin, a shallow cleft. Nathan is 6”0’ of lean, angular muscle, although he is hardly strong. His body is still that of a teenager, which is appropriate considering his lack of maturity. Even though he isn’t quite filled out, he carries himself confidently and uses body language to enhance and express his over-exaggerated personality. He has a very modern sense of style according to fashion of 2009: graphic tees, hoodies, loose jeans, and trainers. Although most of his last days on Earth were spent wearing an orange jumpsuit for community service, he was buried in a plaid-lined, black jacket and favored tee - just as he would have worn in life. Relationships History Nathan was born into troubling circumstances. His parents, Louise and Mike, had a very tumultuous relationship from the beginning, stemming from Mike’s tendencies toward infidelity; it came to light that he had fathered another child with a different woman. To make a new start, they moved from Ireland to London, but the change wouldn’t help their fractured relationship. They divorced shortly after and Louise gained custody of Nathan. He was a problematic child. Often times he would act out for his mother’s attention, and came to harbor deep resentment for his absent father. From committing petty theft to slinging verbal abuse, Nathan constantly tested his mother’s patience, even though she was the only person he truly cared for. He also developed a thick skin resistant to criticism and insult in order to prevent his own words from being thrown back in this face. Sarcastic humor and wit became Nathan’s only method of communicating with others, to the point where he knew no other way. Smoking, partying, and drinking became Nathan’s favorite activities and he fell into a social circle whose interests were the same. One night, Nathan went to a nearby bowling alley with a few pals and was bumming around the concession area, eating various foods without paying and acting disrespectfully. When confronted by the manager, he proceeded to thoroughly insult the man and cause a huge scene, ruining some property in the process. He was given a choice: pay for the damaged goods or get picked up by the police. Nathan attempted to swindle the man with a phony credit card before he finally called his mother for help. When he father arrived in her place, Nathan refused his money just to spite him and instead ended up being taken to jail, where he would be detained until his mother returned from her trip overseas. For this incident, Nathan was sentenced to six weeks of community service, to be completed at a nearby community center with six other delinquents: Curtis, a disgraced track star; Alisha, a wild partier; Kelly, an aggressive townie; Simon, a unsettling intellectual; and Gary, a rough drug user. Nathan immediately got off on the wrong foot with nearly all of said delinquents, almost stumbling into a fist-fight with one, flirting shamelessly with another, and picking on the quietest of them. However, even amidst this social interaction, it was Nathan who first noticed the storm approaching. As massive chunks of hail began to rain down from the sky, the group ran for cover toward the community center. Just moments before they found safety inside, lightning struck five of them (it would have been six, had Gary not stormed off in a rage earlier) as well as the probation worker in a simultaneous strike. In a bizarre twist of events, this electrocution did not harm them any further than knocking them to the ground, but the strange effects of this particular storm would become apparent later. For the time being, they were sent home. Nathan returned to his mother’s house to find that the locks had been changed. His constant antagonistic behavior towards her boyfriends had finally had an effect on her patience, and she insisted that he find somewhere else to live in order to prevent him from driving Jeremy, her current partner, away. Meanwhile, at the community center, Gary was ditching his service completely ignorant of the storm or what had happened when he was confronted by Tony, the probation worker. Tony flew into a fit of unbridled rage and murdered him; this uncontrollable aggression was a side effect of the storm. With no other close friends willing to take him in, Nathan returned to the community center, the only place he could think of, and officially began squatting there, completely unaware of Gary’s demise. The next morning, the rest of the group returned to begin another day of community service. Kelly had found that she was hearing the thoughts of other people and tried to find out if any of the others were experiencing side effects from the storm. When she heard Nathan call her a chav in his mind, she punched him and walked off. When Tony tried to stop her by force, she hit him and caused him to fly into a rage once more. He caught up with her and attempted to kill her with a steel post, and Kelly was forced to run for her life. Upon returning to the community center, Kelly warned the others that Tony had gone berserk and confessed that she was hearing voices; in particular, she had heard Tony’s thoughts plotting to kill her. Unsurprisingly, none of them believed her story, Nathan least of all. Following her lead, Simon revealed that he was also affected by the storm and gained the ability to become invisible, but because he could not do it in front of them, no one believed him. Kelly begged them not to go outside, but Curtis opened the door anyway, allowing Tony to burst in, kill Kelly, and head towards the others. Shocked by this traumatic event, Curtis began to inadvertently rewind time - a power he gained from the storm. When he returned to mere moments before Kelly was killed, he confirmed Kelly’s story and advised them to get out while they still could. On their way to the back door, Nathan slipped on a pool of blood - blood seeping from the locker Gary’s body had been shoved into. It was then that whole group then realized the true danger they were in and Curtis, in a moment of comfort, held Alisha’s hand. Upon touching her skin, he immediately began to insist they have sex until she managed to pull back, disgusted by his outburst. She touched Simon experimentally and he too confessed rather intimate and out of character sexual desires. But there was no time to focus on this bizarre twist - Tony had circled around the building and forced his way in through the door. In a moment of desperation, Kelly grabbed a paint can and smashed Tony’s head in before stomping him to death. With two bodies to explain, the group had to act quickly. Insistent that they would be blamed for their deaths, Kelly demanded that they come up with a plan. Simon suggested that they hide the bodies - no bodies, no crime - and Nathan proposed that they disguise the bodies as senior citizens in order to take them somewhere to be buried. They collectively wheeled the bodies beneath a nearby overpass and, after burying them, made a pact to keep the events of the past two days a secret. They were now joined together not just by their community service, but by their mutual crime and by their unusual abilities. It was clear that the storm had affected them all in various, supernatural ways. Kelly had become telepathic, Simon could turn invisible, Curtis was able to turn back time, and Alisha could sexually excite others through touch. Only Nathan had yet to reveal a power. With this incident safely behind them for the time being, they continued in their community service as normal. One morning, they discovered a naked man a nearby alley: Jeremy, Nathan’s mother’s boyfriend. He was appropriately distressed by this revelation and went to tell his mother that something weird was going on with him, but she believed his story was an attempt to drive yet another boyfriend away. Without any proof, he had no way to convince her otherwise and had to back off. As part of their community service, the gang was required to assist at a senior citizens’ dance event, overseen by Sally, the new probation worker. There, Nathan met Ruth, a young, beautiful volunteer with whom he proceeded to flirt and party with after hours at the center. By sheer coincidence, they stumbled across Jeremy, naked and acting like a dog, and snapped a photo to show to his mom. When presented with evidence the next morning, Jeremy resisted Nathan’s attempts to blackmail him and was punched. Louise angrily confronted Nathan about this, revealing that she knew about Jeremy’s condition, yet another result of the storm, and still loved him anyway. Their fight escalated until Louise slapped Nathan for the first time ever. Nathan went to Ruth with his problem regarding his mom and Jeremy, and she suggested that he lay off them both as it was unfair of Nathan to want his mother to remain single and devote all of her attention to him. She comforted him, and this comfort turned into a continuation of their partying the night prior. However, In the midst of passion, it became clear that Ruth was not just an average girl when Nathan looked up and saw she had instantly aged sixty years or so. She explained that the storm had caused her to revert to a youthful age, and that she wanted to enjoy herself once more by partying and having fun. It seemed the effects were not permanent, however, and that she switched between being young and old at random. Nathan, shocked and disgusted by this turn of events, immediately left. He then proceeded to run away from her when they next met at the community center, too confused and unsure of how to feel, despite having come to like her quite a bit. When he returned to Ruth’s house to apologize for leaving her, he found that she had passed away - all alone, with no children or husband. The guilt and sadness he felt for the unresolved way in which things with Ruth had been left served as a catalyst for his own apology to his mother and Jeremy. In an act of repentance and respect for their relationship, he refrained from returning to his home and decided to continue living at the community center. Throughout the next couple of weeks, Nathan attempted to discover his power - super strength, precognition, breathing underwater, or whatever it might be - during their community service hours. A probation worker named Sally served as their probation worker in lieu of Tony and, unknown to them, was investigating the group's connection to him. She was Tony’s girlfriend, and had been suspicious of them ever since he had gone missing. Although she did not have any evidence, she suspected that they were involved somehow in Tony’s disappearance and may have in fact killed him. She used her position as their new supervisor to plant ominous notes, snoop through their private possessions for clues, and even seduce Simon, who had Tony’s credit card and was forging purchases to make it seem as if he was still alive. When her ill intentions came to light, she hurt Simon and tried to escape with every intention to call the police. During their physical altercation, he accidentally killed her; he hid her body himself and did not tell the others, even though he did it solely to protect them. One morning, the gang witnessed a self-therapy session being held for reformed teenagers who gave up partying and bad manners, led by a girl named Rachel. Unbeknownst to them, she had the ability to influence the behavior of others through vocal hypnotism and used this gift to induct teenagers into a group based on strict, Christian morality, called Virtue. Alisha was the first to be controlled, after running into Rachel in the bathroom; next was Curtis, who was led into an ambush by Alisha. Fortunately, Nathan and Kelly were hanging out after hours in the community center and witnessed Curtis’s induction. They enlisted Simon to help capture Alisha and snap her out of the trance. However, when Kelly finally cornered her, Simon and Nathan were chased away by members of Virtue and could not save Kelly from Rachel and Curtis. Simon used his invisibility to get away and left Nathan in a crowd of Virtue members to be abducted when, miraculously, he was saved by a mysterious boy in a hood and mask who biked him to safety. He stopped by Kelly’s house to see if she had made it out, but she had indeed been brainwashed. Despite his best efforts to talk her out of it, including revealing his growing feelings for her and his guilt for leaving her behind, she would not listen. Nathan came to a crossroads: leave everything behind and escape from the rapidly growing cult, or fight back. In an act that disregarded his sense of self-preservation, he returned to help his friends by disguising himself as a member of Virtue. Undercover, he snuck into the group, took Rachel hostage by gunpoint, and brought her to the rooftop of the community center, from where he gave one last speech to try and break the trance. The tension of the moment was broken when Rachel realized his gun was actually a water pistol and attempted to fight back against Nathan. She slipped, however, and fell from the roof; Nathan was about to follow when a previously invisible Simon grabbed his hand in a rescue attempt. It was for naught. Rachel had been killed the instant her head collided with the pavement and the trance broke with her body. Kelly, Curtis, and Alisha came to just in time to see Nathan impaled on a fence after his rain-slicked hand had come loose from Simon’s grip. Curtis was unable to force himself to rewind time for a panicking Kelly and Alisha, and Nathan died. But then he woke up. After a funeral had been held and his body buried in a cemetery, Nathan regained consciousness, realizing that he did have a power: immortality. This did not please him for very long, as he was still six feet underground, and it was right after cursing out his friends for burying him alive that black cords punched through the sides of the coffin and dragged him into Pandora, kicking and screaming. Pandora History